Читать книгу Gaudeamus - Mircea Eliade - Страница 7

THREE: NONORA

I found no respite to notice my anxiety. My time was less and less my own. I divided it between my books and the club. Books piled up, and the club became more and more active. We continued to meet at night in the attic. We made preparations for a ball and festival. Girls searched for young men to take part in an auction. The chairman signed more and more papers and came up with just as many new projects. The deputy chairman, a pale, calm student of industrial chemistry, examined the proposals with a smile and glacial logic. He never showed emotion, never spoke to anyone, and never allowed himself to be carried away by the general enthusiasm. He would smile after every speech and say, ‘And now, let us examine the opposing position …’

He was irritated by the rhetoric and writings of Nicolae Iorga. And that was all. The more Bibi thought about Andrei, the friendlier she became when she was around me. She was the first to accept the invitation to celebrate Saint Basil’s Night with the ‘elite’, at my place. Also invited were Nonora, a fellow soprano called ‘Florenţa’, two sentimental medical students, the blond girl Măriuca, Gaidaroff, the committee, a few Law students, Radu, and Andrei. The chairman decided on the sum everyone should chip in for bottles of champagne.

During the day on New Year’s Eve, I received a visit from a broad-shouldered Polytechnic student, with a moist smile and hazel eyes. He told me that he was a member of our club, that he had paid his dues, and that he wanted to ‘see in the New Year’ with us. He spoke to me as if I were a close friend, in an uninhibited bass voice, and addressed me as ‘boss’. I told him he would be welcome, naturally.

As he left, with a twinkle in his eye, he said, ‘Will there be any games?’

‘I’m not sure; the chairman.’

‘Who cares about the chairman, boss! Party games, we’ll get along famously.’

That evening, the man who called me ‘boss’ arrived with a pale, serious youth, whom he introduced to us as Gabriel.

‘But he goes by “Malec”. He’s a student too, poor chap. Law.’

He laughed familiarly. Then, to Gabriel, who did not dare cross the threshold:

‘Come on, Malec! Come on! Student-like!’

An awkward silence at once descended on the attic. The girls gathered by the stove and waited. The committee was embarrassed. I smiled and offered chairs to the newcomers. Nonora gave them a defiant look. ‘Boss’ forgot to take off his galoshes, and stared at her.

‘Is the young lady a student?’

‘No.’

‘A pity. We would have been classmates.’

The girls laughed. Gaideroff interjected, ‘Are you unable to pay visits without your galoshes?’

‘Boss’ laughed boisterously.

‘You’re good! What do you say, Malec?’

Malec, pale-faced and serious, stared at Nonora. He was helped out of his overcoat. He took a chair without saying thank you. Again, silence.

‘My name is Gabriel.’

‘Yes, we know, that’s what Mr … mentioned earlier.’

‘Elefterescu, Elefterescu. What do you think, Malec?’

They had forgotten my name.

‘Like in Cluj, with all those Hungarians. Forgive me, I almost said a swearword, but that’s just me, what with me being a patriot. My father was the terror of the Jews – are you all anti-Semites?’

Mr Elefterescu’s vigour made us all uncomfortable. In the ensuing silence I looked around the room and hazarded a ‘yes, yes.’

‘Boss’ told us stories of the battles he and his sidekicks had fought in Cluj.

‘It was getting out of hand. And you’re only a student once! To one I only had to shout, “Hey, you!” And the fool ran off.’ He laughed. Pleased with himself.

‘I’m not one to back down when patriotism is on the line!’

We nodded. ‘Malec’ was staring at Nonora, steadily, resignedly, pale-faced. He was beginning to annoy her. She avoided his gaze, changed chairs, and pretended to be bored. But ‘Malec’ calmly continued to stare.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

The question burst out furiously. Gabriel gave a start and then looked away, with dignity, making no reply. The ‘Boss’ made light of it.

‘He’s funny, isn’t he? I told him that we’d have a party, just like students! We heard there’d be champagne. But not until midnight. On no account is it allowed before then. You know, I like to have a couple of glasses myself. But then again you don’t know me – what do you think, Malec?’

You might say that ‘Malec’ was attempting a smile. But all he managed was to squint his eyes and make his lips look thinner.

‘Oh, that’s just the way he is. The silent type. He’s a bit more talkative than usual today – you should see him when he argues with his wife. What a commotion!’

‘He’s married?’

‘Yes, since high school. He has a beautiful wife – Parla d’itali­ano con me e con altri.’

The attic burst into life in a single moment. The girls found it difficult to disguise the interest with which they looked at Mr Gabriel. The chairman brightened up. Gaidaroff went over to him and offered him a cigarette. Mr Gabriel turned pale, almost cadaverous. The situation was strange, grotesque, tragic, and full of comic tension.

‘A wife – and it’s a good thing too: he’s got a house, meals, everything he needs. He works, his wife’s at the university: a happy couple.’

Mr Gabriel once again attempted to smile. He did not succeed. Sitting icily, he once more stared at Nonora. An irritating, disturbing look, hinting at nightmarish horrors, depression, danger. Nonora got up from her chair.

‘I’m leaving.’

Mr Gabriel reacted in a way no one ever would have predicted, given his glacial serenity. He convulsed, threw on his coat, and ran out of the door. We didn’t even have time to turn on the light to the wooden flight of stairs. In fright, we heard him stumbling, stamping down the stairs.

‘What’s up with you, Malec? Where are you going? Why don’t you stay, to party with these students? Champagne, games!’

The ‘Boss’ came back smiling.

‘That’s just the way he is – but he’s a good chap.’

He started to speak. We all listened to him in bewilderment. Radu smoked heavily, Nonora was annoyed. Whispers:

‘They’ve ruined our party!’

Then we heard soft snowballs hitting the windows. Peering out of the window, I could see ‘Malec’ down below. Mr Elefterescu waved to him. We all looked at each other in bafflement.

‘He’s crying, poor chap. I best be going.’

Right then it seemed to me that the attic had grown cold. I put some more wood in the stove. The ‘Boss’ shook a few hands, smiling regretfully.

‘Too bad about the champagne.’

After we heard the gate close in the courtyard down below, we took a deep breath. The chairman was furious.

‘Who invited them?’

‘Savages!’

‘Malec is in the preliminary stages of mental debility.’

The deputy chairman proffered his clear and objective opinion: ‘It is, I believe, the result of inbreeding.’

We were unable to forget the episode until close to midnight. The bizarre, grotesque atmosphere left by the stares and attitude of ‘Malec’ and the suspicious effrontery of Mr Elefterescu the poly­technic student vanished. We ate, and filled our glasses with red wine. Gaidaroff positioned himself next to Măriuca, Radu next to Nonora, and the medical student girls next to members of the committee, ‘Florenţa’ between the two law students, Bibi between Andrei and myself. Bibi was the most disturbed by the visit and the harsh verdict of the deputy chairman. She was sullen, and stared at Andrei and him alone.

After the champagne, we decided to play games. We were all in high spirits. I suppose that the aftermath of the odd experience, and the magnitude of the averted crisis, had generated a surplus of energy waiting to be released.

The one thing I had feared at the beginning of the game did indeed occur, that is, having to kiss Nonora. With everyone else revelling in the sight and judging me to be too timid.

Nonora was calm; her eyes seared like a branding iron, but then grew clouded and sad.

‘Come on, get on with it – don’t bore me.’

‘Should I start with your forehead?’

‘If you’re perverse.’

‘How many times?’ I said, trying to delay.

‘Why don’t you start, and then I’ll tell you when to stop.’

But with everyone laughing, how could I tell them I could not kiss Nonora like that?

‘One … two … three … five … nine … five … four … The boys counted. Nonora, having tired of it, stopped me. She laughed.

‘You have no idea.’

I was agitated, furious. I had to defend myself, but I didn’t know what to say.

‘In front of an audience, obviously I don’t know how.’

‘There’s no point; don’t flatter yourself.’

The next morning, I woke up distraught. I would like to have written down everything that was going on in my soul. But I had got out of the habit of writing my Diary. And besides, I didn’t understand what was going on. I had allowed myself to be carried away by life, the club, the chairman, Nonora, Bibi. I fell asleep again and dreamed strange dreams, in which men shouted: ‘Boss, boss, Malec is calling for you!’

We saw each other nearly every day. Nonora brought over most of the items for the raffle. Radu came with her and unloaded the packages from a cart, discontentedly smoking cigarette after cigarette. Radu may have still gone to bed at dawn, but he never missed a chance to meet up with Nonora. Whenever we were alone he praised Nonora’s eyes, lips, arms, shoulders, and skin. He told me about touching her knee in the cinema, only to be checked by her fist; about kisses in passageways and backstreets. None of it really affected me. It interested me as something new and different. Nonora, who suspected Radu’s indiscretions, looked at me with defiant eyes. She tried to provoke a reaction by stopping in the middle of one of her anecdotes: ‘He doesn’t understand.’

I knew Nonora didn’t believe what she was saying. But all the same I was humiliated by the pitying looks from the girls and the vulgar superiority of the boys. Even so, I endured the situation with a mix of amusement and forbearing that I could not quite understand. One night, I would be alone with Nonora, make my move, clasp her wildly, kiss her long and hard on the mouth. But I knew that that was as far as I would go. I cannot tell you how many times I heard Radu complain about how she led him on, how she laughed seductively in his face, how she kissed him, how she cuddled him, gritting her teeth, but holding his sweaty hand in her own, before pulling back, with a devilish smile: ‘That’s quite enough! Now go away!’

I could have done the same. But why did I avoid it, determined to be viewed as an anomalous example of purity and innocence, when I had the same mediocre sex life as everybody else, dependent on pure chance?

I did not understand my attraction to Nonora. But from the first time she spoke my name, I was happy. I wasn’t brave enough to ask myself whether I liked her. But I had the feeling that something else altogether attracted me to her and delighted me in her presence. I knew how futile it was to read German after Nonora left. I think of all the pages I failed to absorb, because of the overpoweringly fresh scent of her that still lingered in my nostrils and the scenes recounted by Radu that flashed before my eyes.

I was afraid of her, and I wanted her. Catching myself desiring her, I would feel humiliated, I would scold and deride myself. A few hours would then pass, and again I would find myself wanting her.

The morning of the festival, she came to the train station, nervous about the role she had been assigned in the play. She hadn’t quite memorised her lines yet. With Radu, she drank four cognacs in the station buffet. She refused to let him pay.

‘You’ll cater to my every whim at the ball. Maybe you’ll even make me your queen.’

Radu sat enigmatically, whispering to her between puffs on his cigarette, ‘You’re so delicious.’

‘You’re insufferable!’

‘Your nostrils are quivering.’

‘And you assume it’s because of you?’

‘Naturally.’

‘You’re such a brute.’

‘I know; but you like me.’

Nonora feigned laughter.

‘You look like a convict: ugly, short-sighted, vulgar.’

‘But you still like me.’

‘You’re annoying, and you have a stutter. Go away; you aren’t fun anymore.’

Bibi was sick with longing for Andrei. Gaidaroff carried the makeup kit. The chairman, with lively eyes shining beneath a weary brow, ran back and forth with crates of items for the raffle, a crate of costumes, tickets for members, a folder of documents. The committee tried, without much success, to bring order to our expedition. Our raucous party occupied an entire train carriage. The chairman suggested we sing together, but was rejected by insurgents, who preferred to joke around in front of the windows.

We worked for three hours decorating the hall with pine boughs and paper streamers. The piano was out of tune, with three missing keys. But even so, I tried to play a bit of Grieg.

At dinner, in an empty restaurant warmed and brought to life by our energy, Nonora sat down between Radu and I.

‘Give me some wine! Give me some wine!’

Her acting, in the festival, had been far better than we could have suspected. After the curtain came down, she sought refuge in a nearby room and asked for some cigarettes. I had a packet and was about to offer her one of mine, but Radu proffered his packet first. She kissed him passionately, in front of us all. Radu blushed, but without losing his cool.

‘I would have kissed anyone who gave me a cigarette.’

The chairman, bewildered, had to overlook it; she had performed too well.

The girls pretended to be upset. Although saddened, only Bibi defended her.

‘That’s how she rewards them.’

Gaidaroff muttered to himself: ‘It’s my father’s fault, he never allowed me to smoke.’

Then came the ball: provincial girls with bad makeup, the entrants in the beauty contest, families who drank numerous bottles of soda water, engaged couples in black clothes and shoes that were too tight, second-lieutenants who ironically remarked: ‘Mademoiselle is pensive.’

The chairman entrusted me with overseeing the most difficult task: the cloakroom. I had to keep tabs on four hundred overcoats, capes, hats and pairs of galoshes, stowing them on two tables. It was a great responsibility. Gaidaroff helped me and wielded his humour to assuage the impatience of the people queuing up with their coats. At around ten o’clock, Mr Elfterescu showed up, insisting that he was a student and should not have to pay.

‘Boss, why didn’t you tell me that we were having a ball tonight! I just caught the last train. I didn’t even have time to drop by Malec’s place. Poor lad, he’ll be so disappointed.’

I sent him to our room, which was next to the ballroom and the cloakroom. I laughed with Gaidaroff in anticipation of the enthusiasm with which the ‘Lion’s’ arrival would be greeted. Then Nonora appeared.

‘Can you believe it? He addresses me as tu! He’s revolting! Worse than Malec! I shall slap his face!’

‘Don’t go over the top.’

‘I shall slap him, I tell you, I shall slap him – both him and Malec! Who, may I ask, told him that we were having a ball! Wherever did you find them?’

While we were enjoying Nonora’s tirade, Radu left the room, followed by the deputy chairman and Măruica. They were annoyed.

‘Did you know that Malec’s friend is here? He won’t shut up about Malec. We can’t take it anymore.’

‘He keeps saying, “He’ll be so disappointed!”’

‘And he’s addressing everyone as tu.’

‘And he’s so impertinent’, added Măriuca timidly. ‘He called me his “little hen”. Do I look like anybody’s little hen?’

Gaidaroff gallantly exclaimed, ‘Unbelievable.’

The deputy chairman searched for a practical and discreet way of getting rid of him.

Nonora had plucked up her courage: ‘I’ll hit him!’

‘Be reasonable’, we hastily advised her.

Just then the chairman came in, looking apprehensive.

‘Guess who has turned up? It’s him – Malec’s friend.’

‘The “Lion”, we know.’

‘Why did you let him in? He’s going around telling everyone how he met Malec. He’s laughing at his own jokes, clapping his hands. He’s ruined the party.’

We were all furious, although we couldn’t help but admire how comical and bizarre was the situation Mr Elefterescu had forced upon us for the second time: it was like something straight out of vaudeville. I laughed without any ill will and promised the chairman I would write a comedy with those two strange friends.

A local girl asked me, softly and in embarrassment: ‘Excuse me, is it true that the student sitting at the mayor’s table met Malec or is it a joke?’

Nonora hotly explained the difference between Malec the movie star and Malec the friend of Mr Elefterescu. It wasn’t long before the ‘Lion’ himself made his entrance, flushed with wine.

‘It’s too hot in here, open the windows and then you’ll cool off – that’s how Malec’s sister cools off!’

No one dared make a move. The natural affability of the ‘Boss’ was disarming. He went up to Nonora and gave her a roguish wink.

‘Have you ever been with a Jew?’

The chairman intervened.

‘No politics, please, and no innuendoes. The young lady is indisposed.’

‘I’ll take care of her, boss, but maybe she’s already in love?’

The deputy chairman, polite and restrained, began a sentence with two premises.

‘Therefore, the conclusion.’

‘Joking aside, boss! We’re only students once.’

Nonora hastily put on her coat, said ‘Good night’, and left.

Radu and I ran into the street. There was no way she was coming back.

‘He torments me! He’s obsessed with that Malec of his. I see him – he’s here. They’re both insane, or else he’s drunk.’

Radu wanted to accompany her home, but Nonora accepted my offer. We waited in the train station for the eleven-fifteen. Nonora asked for a liqueur and coffee. I offered a packet of cigarettes. She didn’t seem to remember.

‘I’m bored again. Anyway, cigarettes are bad for you, and you’re wasting your time if you think I’m going to kiss you, especially without an audience or any rivals.’

Then I grabbed her hand and bit it savagely. Her eyes glazed over in dark circles; she trembled. She hid the bite under a handkerchief. Silence. Several travellers stared and then looked away from us. Nonora didn’t seem embarrassed; she smoked and filled her shot glass with liqueur. I admired her composure.

‘Maybe you also know how to kiss?’

The question hissed forth from her lips and eyes.

‘Yes.’

‘What a shame. You’ve ceased to be interesting.’

I knew she was playing hard to get. I was closer to her now than I had ever been. I wasn’t sure what to say to her. I didn’t know anything; neither how to look at her, nor where to put my hands, nor whether I should bite her again.

‘Nonora!’

‘You’re being affected.’

I spent the two-hour train journey in an agitated state, forcing myself to not kiss her, or to hold her. I kept asking myself, without knowing whether I wanted to ask, or whether the question had a mind of its own: Do I love her? I did not have an answer. But I felt very sad when my answer was: Yes, I love her. It seemed to me that a new question sprouted from this answer: It is love? And I thought to myself: No! No!

Nonora was bored, so she whistled. She told me how much I would have to change for her to like me: I would have to learn jokes, take her to the theatre, learn how to walk arm in arm with her without tripping up, speak with her chivalrously in public, without showing myself up, be self-confident, learn how to dance, have my suits tailored on Victory Avenue, give up books, end my friendship with Radu.

In the train station we barely managed to find a horse-drawn cab. Nonora was deep in thought. She spoke to me more gently than before. From the depths of my soul arose forgotten longings from adolescence, from the years when I was writing the Diary. Someone screamed inside: will power, will power, will power! My soul lit up, as if after a rediscovery. But the light was pale, flickering. Nonora spoke to me kindly and warmly. And then again grew silent.

Within me the longings swelled, expanded. I saw the whole year crumbling away because of Nonora. If only I liked her. But I did not like her. She merely troubled me.

As we neared her house, Nonora whispered to me, with her mouth very close: ‘Tomorrow I’ll come over.’

‘I might not be at home.’

Smiling, Nonora looked at me, without growing annoyed, without frowning.

‘You’re beginning to be interesting.’

I paid the cabman, who drove away with his ears pricked up. I felt the urge to say: ‘Nonora, I’m the one who’s bored now. I have feelings, I’m made of flesh and blood. You irritate me without even being a femme fatale. And you’re certainly not La femme et le pantin. Under no circumstances will I go to the cinema with you, and I won’t even see you very often. You’re pursuing me in vain. And besides, I have things to do.’

Nonora was walking beside me. I sensed something was wrong.

‘You’re ridiculous. You and Radu are both sick: you both think that you’re irresistible. You probably think I wanted to seduce you, am I right? I only ever visited you in passing, that’s all. Don’t play the victim. You might have been more polite, if you had other things to do.’

I was not sure how to respond. We wished each other a cold and reserved good night. On the street, on my way back home, I felt strange but somehow happy. ‘I have will power, I have will power.’ I lied to myself.

After that, Nonora never knocked on the door of my attic again.

They got rid of Mr Elefterescu through questionable methods: they gave him rum and white wine to drink. He sang Gaudeamus all by himself in the restaurant, started crying, swore that he loved Nonora, and promised to enrol Malec’s wife and sister in the club.

Gaidaroff and Radu sat next to him, to make sure he did not break any glasses. The chairman personally apologised to the families the ‘Lion’ had sat down next to and asked: ‘Are you anti-Semites?’

After midnight, he started speaking Italian with Gaidaroff, ending every phrase with the lament: ‘Il fovero, Malec.’

He accused the association of not knowing how to party ‘like students’: they should have made Nonora stay, and punished her by forcing her to kiss him. What was more, they should have banned dancing in couples and forced the public to perform a traditional Romanian ring dance. He said he would have sung, if Nonora had accompanied him. He told numerous stories about Malec’s father, who knew how to play the flute. He laughed so loudly during these stories, that he had to take off his collar. He wanted to enter the hall and address the public. To hold him back, Radu stepped on his foot. Mr Elefterescu began to cry and then insulted the chairman in his absence, calling him a ‘Yid’.

After two bottles, he passed out.